The Slightly Strange Origin Story of Drive Me Crazy. Or, How My Novel Had Three Titles in Four Years

I once had the world’s best disappearing literary agent. She was funny and smart and came up with lots of great ideas for books. We would sit on the phone for hours discussing ideas and laughing. There was just one problem. Sometimes she would vanish. Months would pass and she wouldn’t answer phone calls, e-mails, letters, etc. I would get in touch with the other writers she represented and they wouldn’t have heard from her either. None of us had a clue as to where she was or why she was not responding.

Gradually, her others writers found more reliable agents and left, until the day came when I was the only author she had. I just couldn’t bear to leave her. When she was present, or at least, on the phone, she was such a delight and so much fun. Besides, it was during a period when I produced so many books — 36 in two-years/mostly in series for middle school readers — that for her it was like representing a bunch of writers anyway.

But the day finally came when, regretfully I, too, had to say good-bye. Her disappearances had forced me to do too much of her work for her — looking over and questioning publishers’ royalty statements, nudging editors to consider book proposals, trying to make sense of book contracts. In the years that followed, she’d…